ARE WE SELF-CONDEMNED?

An angry skeptic brought this charge against the God of the Bible:

·       A god who damns forever would have done us all a much greater service and shown real love if He had NOT started this eternal nightmare in the first place by forcing His abomination of a will on people who were not seeking it and would NOT have joined up if they knew such an sentence was the outcome--if the tradeoff for his decision is their damnation…No one twisted his arm to say "let there be light"… So every lost person is ultimately his responsibility and his fault…If the God of the bible really does damn people forever, I want nothing to do with Him. He is a monster--and I wouldn't want to spend two minutes around Him.

But what if, instead, we are self-condemned, perhaps condemned by our own standards, the very standards we use to condemn others? Jesus taught this:

·       For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. (Matthew 7:2; ESV)

Therefore, we cannot blame God for judging if we too do the same. Besides, the very standards that we use to judge will judge us. It is noteworthy that our skeptic is also judging. Paul echoed the same teaching:

·       Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. (Romans 2:1)

Complaining about God’s judgment of us, while we judge in the same way, is hypocritical. However, it seems that God is still judging us, right? Well…perhaps not. Jesus enigmatically taught:

·       If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. (John 12:47-48)

How does the word judge? For one thing, created in the likeness of God, He has written His word on our hearts (Romans 2:15-16). Therefore, we know right from wrong and we judge according to this imprinted law.

The skeptic claims that he never asked to be created or judged. Therefore, God has no right to judge him. This is like saying, “The credit card company sent me their credit card, and now they want to bring charges against me for using it.”

However, we have a choice to use the credit card or not. Likewise, we have a choice to judge or not. However, when we judge, we have consented to God’s program, and must make the required payments.

However, the skeptic will continue, “The payment that God requires is just too severe!” But is it? Perhaps it is we and the implanted word that condemn. It seems that this is what Jesus is teaching:

·       For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment [or “condemnation”]: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (John 3:17-20)

Jesus repeatedly denies that He will condemn, but yet those who do not believe are “condemned already.” But how? They are self-condemned. How have they condemned themselves? They have chosen the darkness and rejected God’s light – our only source of hope. As Adam and Eve hid in the darkness from God after they had sinned, so too do we. We have chosen exclusion from His Kingdom.

Does this apply to eternity? Seemingly! If Jesus doesn’t condemn, then it seems that we – the implanted word causing us guilt, shame, and flight – will be doing the condemning. If we cannot tolerate His light here, we will not tolerate it in the next world, where it is even more intense. Notice how the skeptic condemned himself:

·       If the God of the bible really does damn people forever, I want nothing to do with Him. He is a monster--and I wouldn't want to spend two minutes around Him.

The skeptic had charged God with creating an “eternal nightmare.” However, if the skeptic is truly concerned about this, he need only confess his sins and turn to the One who can change his nightmare into a glorious reality.

THE KINGDOM, THE POPE, AND JESUS

It seems that the Pope is a modern-day religious pluralist, who believes that there are many routes to heaven. Responding to a list of published questions, Francis wrote:

·       “You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith. I start by saying – and this is the fundamental thing – that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.

·       “Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience.” http://www.truthandaction.org/pope-says-dont-believe-god-go-heaven/2/

However, the Pope’s words are at great variance to those of the One he is supposed to represent. Jesus’ teachings fail to extend the Pope’s glad tidings. Instead, Jesus insisted that salvation could only come through Him. When asked what deeds had to be performed in order to have eternal salvation, He answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent" (John 6:29), and not merely in their conscience. Even more to the point, He informed the leadership:

• I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins." (John 8:24)

Not very politically correct, but consistent with everything Jesus had taught! He also informed His slow-to-learn disciples that salvation could only come through Him:

• "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

And how did Jesus regard those of other religions?

·       Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.” (John 10:7-9)

In contrast, the Pope claims that salvation is on our own terms, according to our own heart: “God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart.” How reassuring but also misleading!

MANY PATHS TO GOD?

Are there many paths to God? It is common to hear people say:

·       "I believe God taught that we can get to Him through a variety of paths, and the Buddha taught His followers one valid path."

Buddha's religion was very different. His goal was Nirvana not heaven. Here's what he said about it:

·       “Nirvana is the area where there is no earth, water, fire and air. It is not the region of nothing at all, nor the border between distinguishing and not distinguishing, nor this world nor the other world; where there is neither sun nor moon. I will not call it coming or going, nor standing still, nor fading away nor beginning. It is without foundation, without continuation nor stopping. It is the end of suffering.” (Tripitaka)

In Buddha's Nirvana, we do not even retain the self. "We" are just one amorphous consciousness.

Besides, Buddha taught that we'd get there through mind-action control:

·       "This is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it is the Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration."

All the religions of the world require us to be worthy of God or Nirvana. However, Christ became worthy for us, coming down to reach us where we are at, rather than expecting us to become worthy for Him, an impossibility:

·       For our sake he made him [Jesus] to be sin [while He died on the Cross] who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Consequently, salvation – forgiveness and reconciliation with God – is an absolutely free gift:

·       For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

To believe that we can attain to God is to embark upon a path of frustration, discouragement, and despair. If instead, we blind ourselves to our true lowly and broken status, we will become proud and arrogant and will look down on others who haven’t made it. Only in Christ can we experience that satisfaction of arriving without the arrogance of superiority.

DEALING WITH PERSECUTION BY LOOKING BEYOND IT

We Christians are heading into hard times. Persecution has become a tsunami. Some of us are already struggling for our lives. How do we endure?

How did Jesus endure His ordeal?

·       Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

We too must, therefore, look towards the joy set before us. Of what does this joy consist? It consists of our eternal heavenly inheritance:

• But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. (Philippians 3:20-21; Jude 24)

This signifies that we will be (and are) co-heirs with Him:

·       So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. 1 Corinthians 3:21-23 (ESV)

We will be reigning with Him forever:

·       No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:3-5)

The Lord will honor us by blessing us in the presence of our enemies:

·       You prepare a table before me in the presence of my [former] enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever. (Psalm 23:5-6)

I added the word “former,” because many prophecies demonstrate that those who are left at the end will come to the Lord in great shame and humility, and we will reign over them:

·       Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.” (Isaiah 49:23)

·       The sons of those who afflicted you shall come bending low to you, and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet; they shall call you the City of the LORD, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. (Isaiah 60:14)

Who are these nations? Evidently, there will be a great salvation at the end among the survivors of the nations who battle against Israel. They will mourn over their sins:

·       Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. (Rev. 1:7)

·       "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.” (Matthew 24:30)

·       For if their [Israel’s] rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (Romans 11:15)

They will worship God, and God will receive them:

·       "And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. (Joel 2:28)

·       The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might; they shall lay their hands on their mouths; their ears shall be deaf; they shall lick the dust like a serpent, like the crawling things of the earth; they shall come trembling out of their strongholds; they shall turn in dread to the LORD our God, and they shall be in fear of you. (Micah 7:16-17)

·       "From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me," says the LORD. (Isaiah 66:23)

·       Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, they will have no rain. If the Egyptian people do not go up and take part, they will have no rain. The LORD will bring on them the plague he inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. (Zech. 14:16-18; 8:20-23; Isaiah 66:18-21; Joel 2:32; Amos 9:12; Acts 15:17)

·       "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear. They will say of me, 'In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength.' All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame. But in the LORD all the descendants of Israel will be found righteous and will exult.” (Isaiah 45:22-25)

And the nations that remain after the final war will be providing for us:

• "Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you. Though in anger I struck you, in favor I will show you compassion. Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that men may bring you the wealth of the nations -- their kings led in triumphal procession.” (Isaiah 60:10-11)

• The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. (Revelation 21:24-26)

We will be reigning over them (Rev. 22:5), rendering judgments:

·       Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? (1 Corinthians 6:2)

We will also minister the things of God as priests to the nations (1 Peter 2:9; Rev. 1:5; 5:10; 20:6). Perhaps more importantly, we will be enjoying an unimaginable love with our God:

·       And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD. (Hosea 2:19-20; Eph. 3:17-19)

If people endure college by looking towards the final goal, how much more must we look towards the accomplishment of all things to endure our trials!